08 January 2011

This day was spent on the fantastic Tepui Trail, that leaves almost from the door of Yankuam Lodge. The reason for our visit there? It is home to many rare Ecuadorian species that are found largely only there in Ecuador and just over the border in Peru. I personally had five main targets on this intriguing trail: Bar-winged Wood-Wren, Rufous-browed Tyrannulet, Roraiman Flycatcher, Royal Sunangel, and Cinnamon-breasted Tody-Tyrant, all of which would be lifebirds, not bad after five years in country.The trail is steep and very tricky, with treacherous tree roots, and loose rocks creating a challenging route that is therefore rarely walked in this remote corner of Ecuador. Three hundred meters up the trail we ran into another male Zimmer's Antbird, and then things went real quite as we edged our way higher. We had the main objective of reaching the ridge-top that held the promise of a rare blue hummer, the Royal Sunangel. We were under the impression that this was at a substantial 1600m elevation (considering the starting point is a mere 840m this promised to be quite a climb for us). Unfortunately as we neared 1600m and there was no sign of the ridge top we discovered the ridge was actually over 1800m, and another steep climb lay in front of us! We stuck to the task though and were rewarded with four of my target birds. The first to fall was a Rufous-browed Tyrannulet that turned up at around 1600m near the upper camp, and then seven different Bar-winged Wood-Wrens were seen, including one very confiding bird (bottom photo). Pushing higher we eventually (some six or so hours later) reached the ridge top and collapsed in view of an intriguing looking set of red-and-yellow blooms, that as we'd hoped drew in first a male and then a female Royal Sunangel while we ate our lunch among the stunted shrubbrey up there. On the way down we found two more male sunangels (top photo), managed to get a great look at a Cinnamon-breasted Tody-Tyrant after it toyed with us for a while, and found a flock with a Vermilion Tanager glowing within. A memorable day with five lifers (that included a rather embarrassing "tart's tick"/nemesis bird: Northern White-crowned Tapaculo). The supposedly common Roraiman Flycatcher managed to avoid me all day, remaining unheard and unseen, meaning that someday soon I will have to return to the dreaded Tepui Trail!

Next up will be an early Jan visit to the high Andes of Antisana in Ecuador: Condors, caracaras and ibis...

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WHO is Sam Woods?

A pair of tits (Blue and Great) in a London park 30 years back changed my life; I became a birder, and an obsessive birder by the following weekend. Works like Bill Oddie's Little Black Bird Book and Richard Millington's A Twitcher's Diary helped in no small part to nurture this in my formative years.
30 years on I am still an avid birder but have also learnt to appreciate other sectors of the natural world, especially frogs and primates in particular, through the undoubted influence of David Attenborough The Great and others. I now work as a full-time professional tour leader for Tropical Birding Tours, and now reside in the Andes of Ecuador. I love my job, sharing birds with people provides every bit of a buzz as a lifebird, which, of course, still creates a wave of excitement every time. I have been lucky enough to see well over 6550 bird species on my travels, which does not make me any more talented than anyone else, just one that is always greedy and impatient for more, which has taken me to all seven continents, and always yearning for that ONE...MORE...B-I-R-D!
I use Swarovski binoculars & scope, & shoot with Canon 7D and Canon 400m f5.6L lens.